Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku is coming to Japan on Thursday, August 2 and will retail for 6,980 yen and 8,980 yen for the game bundled with a USB memory card.

If players choose to purchase a stand alone copy of the game, they must have a USB memory stick that has a capacity of 16 GB or greater. To play the game online, users must also have access to broadband internet. The game itself is shipping on two Wii disks and as of right now, it is not clear what content is on the second disk.

Being an online game, the latest entry in the Dragon Quest series has a fee to play online. Purchases can be made via credit card or prepaid Nintendo point cards for 1,000 yen for 30 days, 1,950 yen for 60 days, and 2,900 yen for 90 days. Players can create up to three characters and additionally receive a 20-day free play voucher with their purchase of the game. Square Enix is also setting aside specific times for "kids play," which are periods of time where online play is free and meant for children. However, Square Enix is not setting age restrictions through the software to enforce the special play time.

Control methods in the game are varied as the game supports the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro, and USB Keyboard. At the moment, there is no solid release date for the Wii U version of Dragon Quest X.

Talkback

Although I'm a big fan of the Dragon Quest series, paying for online access isn't something I like to support as my gaming time is usually irregular and goes through weeks or months of being very limited. But the trailer looks like so much fun...

(Is this confirmed as Wii U-only in North America? That would make the eventual buying decision so much easier.)

Hopefully when they bring this to NA they do what Capcom did with Monster Hunter Tri by making online free for us: it cost about $80 for a year's worth for online in Japan

Its $144 a year for WoW if you buy it in 6 month Increments $180 if you don't. If they are gearing to make th WoW jump for Dragon Quest then $80 a year isn't that bad provided they can make the WoW jump. Which includes engaging fans outside of the actual games through Developement APIs and Community back and forth.

I'm not even sure it's confirmed that the game is coming to North America, but it seems likely. So no, it isn't confirmed which version(s) will be released here.

Given Dragon Quest's relative lack of popularity in North America, I can't imagine that it will cost money to play online. Monster Hunter Tri has a fee in Japan but is free here, so it'll be like that. Plus, it'll probably be published by Nintendo, and they don't like to charge for online features.

Patches and perhaps some downloadable expansion content, I assume. 16 GB is a rather big space for one Wii game, but I assume it's so Square Enix has more than enough space to play around with during the online game's lifetime. Also, it would be bad to have the consumer need to upgrade their storage space to continue playing the game.